


Willful Avoidance

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics), Outsiders (Comics)
Genre: Community: 7 virtues, Dick/Babs - Freeform, Dick/Kory - Freeform, M/M, all secondary pairings, dick/roy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-13
Updated: 2006-06-13
Packaged: 2019-03-11 04:19:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13516464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: Dick tries to learn from his past mistakes by abstaining from getting too close.





	Willful Avoidance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "abstinence." 
> 
> Abstinence- "implies the willful avoidance of pleasures thought to be harmful or self-indulgent"- Oxford Desk Dictionary

In the past, Dick has made mistakes.

He doesn’t dwell on those mistakes a lot these days, mostly because he’s too busy to do so. Heading the newly revamped Outsiders is an arduous task and Dick can’t allow his mind to wander, because someone on his team might get hurt. 

Casualties cause low morale. Low morale causes a decline in performance.

But once upon a time, Bruce had taught him the importance of examining his choices. The purpose, of course, was to learn what his mistakes had been in order to prevent repeating them. It was a concept Dick had understood well, given his background. His parents had very similar beliefs in the circus, where the slightest mistake on the trapeze could be deadly.

Wasn’t that how he became Robin in the first place?

Therefore, as leader of the Outsiders, Dick knows he must take time out of his day to search carefully for any mistakes he might have made, and secure a plan on how not to repeat them.

Dick chooses 4:30 a.m., when he’s getting ready to fuck Owen Mercer, as his reflective time. 

As Dick undresses, he thinks about Babs, how much he’d loved her, how he’d tried to show her that every day, and how much it hadn’t mattered in the end. When he kisses Owen, it’s Babs’ voice that he hears, pushing him away. 

He kisses Owen far more roughly than he’d ever kissed her, biting down on the younger man’s lip until he tastes blood.

As Dick tugs off Owen’s shirt, he thinks of Kory, how she’d been the first person to show him the joy physical pleasure could bring, how he’d planned to spend the rest of his life with her, and how she’d left in the end. 

When he pushes Owen down on the bed, it’s with far more anger than he’d ever shown Kory. 

Dick wants to stop at Babs and Kory. But he knows the list of mistakes doesn’t end there, and Bruce’s voice rings loudly in Dick’s head as he unbuttons Owen’s pants.

Because no list of Dick’s mistakes can be complete without including the teammates he’d permanently let down - Donna, Raven, Joey, Indigo. . . 

Or the ones that he’d indirectly let down - Garth, Wally, Roy - all missing, and presumed dead.

All of their faces slide through his memory as Dick begins to fuck Owen in earnest. The boy’s hands reach upward, searching for the comfort and want that the Outsiders don’t offer. Owen wants Dick to give him the very emotions Dick used to give his teammates without hesitation. But Dick can’t do that anymore, because when he thinks of teammates past, he thinks of how easily he’d let them in, how he’d let them down, how many he’d lost, and how crippling the pain that came from losing them had become.

When Owen’s face brushes against Dick’s, it’s Roy’s face that he sees, and Roy’s voice that he hears, telling him that he’s learned well from Batman.

It isn’t a compliment.

It’s Roy’s voice - which won’t shut up, no matter how much he yells, pleads or begs with it - that makes Dick grasp Owen’s wrists tight enough to leave marks. They’re marks that will cause looks of disapproval from Anis- _Thunder -_ when she sees them.

But what Thunder thinks . . . or what Roy would think, if he were still _here_. . .is unimportant, because they’re both wrong. They both want him to be the nice guy - the kind that would never fuck Owen Mercer just because he can pass for Roy Harper in the dark. They want him to be the kind of man that rolls over after the fucking session and _chats_ with his partner - not the kind that leaves his partner’s bed as soon as the last spasm has left his body.

Dick _was_ that person once. First as Robin, then as Nightwing, he’d let people in. He’d cared about them all. And one by one, they’d all left.

He isn’t going to indulge in that type of personal gratification. The Outsiders aren’t that type of team. He isn’t that type of person - anymore.

After all, in the past he may have made mistakes. But he’s learned from them. He’s determined never to repeat them. 


End file.
